


Old Scars

by Oboeist3



Series: I Used To Have Short Hair [2]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Self-Esteem Issues, Trans Character, Trans Eliot, eliot's been through a lot, like i swear there's fluff in here too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 06:18:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oboeist3/pseuds/Oboeist3
Summary: Hitters accumulate scars, especially ones who have been in the business as long as Eliot has. Not all of them are on the surface.





	Old Scars

**Author's Note:**

> the reception on the first fic in this series was so good that i felt compelled to finish this one up asap. hope you enjoy!

Hitters accumulate scars, the same way that hackers get routines and grifters get characters, especially ones who have been in the business as long as Eliot has. He's kept his face pretty unmarked, if only by luck, broken his nose twice and his cheek once. His orbitals have taken their fair share of beating, little hairline fractures, and he knows in a few years that'll catch up to him, have to get surgery and probably lose his twenty/twenty vision.

His neck and wrists and ankles are covered in broken ovals from restraints: handcuffs, rope, zipties, duct-tape. The back of his head is starburst lacerations, butts of rifles, bottoms of beer bottles, the head of a drill. His shoulders have six separate stab wounds, all with their distinctive edges, and it almost bugs him that they're mismatched, four-two.

The bottoms of his feet are glass kissed, and the palms of his hands read like a topographical map, too many ridges and valleys to map back to their causes. His back is shrapnel and gunshots, a few whip lashes that curl back to front around his collarbone. There's an unassuming round mark where his spine had been tapped.

The longest scar is also one of the oldest, stretches from his elbow halfway to his wrist, from when he'd told Father he wasn't going to wear the dress to church and he had grabbed Eliot's arm and twisted, too hard. He still sometimes gets twitches from the nerve damage, little jolts of almost pain through the tips of his fingers.

That was before Father had learned to hide the marks under clothing. His abdomen bore the brunt of it, still does, and sometimes he'll laugh when his adversaries hit already marked areas, layers of scattered crescents from dozens of steel-toed boots. He laughs because it's funny, that they think they can hurt him in a way that'll stick. Like he's not used to this.

Eliot collects scars at a pace that is most certainly unhealthy, teeters on the edge of dangerous. For the most part, he doesn't care about them. They're consequences of his actions, of his mistakes, and he can hardly a remember a time when some part of him had not been aching, stinging, bleeding. It anchors him to reality in a way his mind sometimes doesn't.

When he joins Leverage, he becomes grateful for them. The scars are now connected to people he's helped, from saving his team, protecting his family. He hasn't been able to feel that protective edge in decades, not since...well, that doesn't bear thinking.

He likes the way Parker holds the first aid kit as he patches himself up, how she's able to hand him the next item within a few missions, likes how Hardison keeps his supply of pain management stocked, wordlessly, without praise nor expectation of payment, as if it's so obvious he doesn't even need to say thank you.

As the years stretch on and his self control wavers, the scars give excuses for him to be touched, for Parker to trace her tricky fingers over them as the three of them watch a movie, demand stories. He gives her some of the less gruesome ones, occasionally exaggerate the details enough for Hardison to call bullshit, poke at the increasingly small area of unmarked skin, trace fractals in the space if he's bored enough.

He tells them his best kept secret on one of those occasions. The movie is a romantic comedy he's seen three times, though never in English, so it's easy to tune out and focus on Parker's search for new territory, the weight of Hardison's head across his thighs.

"I've never noticed this one before." she says, tracing lowercase gamma, maybe an alpha from her angle, over his areola. He shudders, equal parts sensitivity and anticipation of her question, unsure of how he'd answer. "What's it from?"

Hardison's looked away from the screen, probably felt the shudder, and they both have this wide eyed curiosity, like he's the most fascinating thing they've ever looked at, and he knows they don't mean it like he wants but it's still so much more than he deserves, and he feels like he needs to earn it.

"Thailand." he says, a little breathy, because she hasn't stopped and he certainly doesn't want to tell her to. "I was twenty, presumed dead, and I'd finally gotten enough money to wet the right palms. The surgery took five hours, because I was immune to anesthesia at that point, so they gave me morphine. I was delirious when I came to, so they probably shouldn't have given me the forms to sign, but seeing my name on a form, even if half of it was in Thai, it made me so goddamn happy. E-L-I-O-T." He's smiling, soft and edgeless, and he's grateful that they've reminded him of the memory, usually lost in the blur of his early twenties.

"Thank you." she whispers, kisses his cheek as her fingers retreat, but keeps leaning on him, pressed flush to his side.

"You probably shouldn't take opioids next time you get shot." Hardison says, makes a note on his phone and turns back to the movie.

The way wanting them hurts is different from physical injuries, and it never scars, because it doesn't stop hemorrhaging, draining him. It reminds him of the cigarette burns along his hips, pain he inflicted on himself for the sake of it, hoping that if there are marks where **his** fingers were he wouldn't feel them anymore. Except he wants their touches, their kisses, covets their skin against his, wants something he can never, ever have, not in reality.

And then it happens, suddenly, over brunch. Everything he's ever wanted is handed to him and by the time he gets to Hardison's place he's in tears. His breath is short and he's shaking so hard his vision blurs and they guide him to the chair, his chair, before his legs give out.

"Hey man, look at me. It's going to be ok." he promises, looking at him with those soft brown eyes, impossibly gentle. "Breathe in for four, hold for seven, out for eight." Eliot follows his instructions, feels his heart rate start to slow. Keeps doing it until the world is less blurry, until he can see the details of his smile.

"Welcome back, Captain. You wanna talk about it?" he says, carefully neutral, even though Eliot knows he's nosy, he can't hear it.

"I was going to kiss you."

"O-Oh." he stutters, a little unbalanced, and that helps, knowing he's not the only one.

"And then I started thinking."

"Terrible mistake, really."

"Shut up." he says, but there's no bite to it. "I'm just...I don't know if I..." Parker's hand is on his other shoulder now, grounding, like a tether. "I can't quite believe it's real. That you're in love with me. It feels too good to be true."

"Why's that?"

"Cause you've already got each other, and you're these amazing people, and I'm...not."

"Well that's some bullshit." Hardison says, and Eliot blinks at him, twice. "Knowing my girl, I think she was pretty blunt, which is good. But it might've been a lot to take in."

"Yea."

"So I'm going to tell you this. There's no rush, and no pressure, if this isn't something you want. But if it's about not feeling like you're enough, then I don't have any time for that."

"Me neither." Parker adds.

"You're special to us. You're one of the most amazing people I've ever met, and I love you. I know it takes more than that to really feel confident, but please. Don't hold yourself back from something that could make you happy, just because you don't feel like you've earned it. I promise you have. You've saved our skin more times than I can count, and you make us happy. Like stupidly so, like I can't even quantify - "

Eliot kisses him, soft and tender and yet intense, because he's not really capable of going slow, even when he's got no destination to rush to. He cradles his head in his hands and draws circles into his neck, feels the shivers through his fingertips and smirks, just a little.

"Parker was right. You babble, baby."

"Uhhh."

"Told you, vowel sounds." she says, and high fives him.

For the first time in ages, nothing hurts at all.

**Author's Note:**

> is the formatting on this a mess? yes. do i care? no.


End file.
